"I’ve been in deep pre-production for the second series of Puberty Blues. We start shooting from Monday and it’s always really hectic in the last week of pre. I’ve been pulling together my kit from the wonderful guys at Panavision and even though we shot with the Alexa last time a lot can happen in 12 months ! We’re up to V7 in the Alexa and the first season was shot using V4.

Also since then, Blackmagic have announced two new cameras. So far on the second series of Puberty Blues we have two Alexas, A C300 (for surf footage in the water and slow mo) three BMCC’s and now a BMCC pocket. I’ve been shooting a lot of tests this week and unfortunately I can’t share most of those with you, but I was able to steal a few minutes to shoot with the pocket with the SLR magic 25mm lens."

(...) "The camera is a tool, but the glass serves as your eyes into the story."

The lens’ traits can help tell your story. The look and feel of lenses, their characteristics of color and contrast rendition, are all relevant factors. For example, some lenses are cold, some have warmth, and many are yellow. My choice of lenses was paramount when I was slated to shoot The Greatest Game Ever Played. It was a period piece that took place between 1888 and 1912. Bill Paxton, the director, and I were both fans of the FSA (Farm Security Administration) photos featuring photographers Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans. They were mainly black and white images. There had just been some 1600 Kodachrome prints that were discovered in a trunk in someone’s attic, and they were reprinted in a book called Bound for Glory.

We chose this style to be the look of the movie. We worked to test every lens to try and recapture this imagery. We tried Panavision Primos, Cooke S4s, old Baltars, and Cooke Pancros. Ultimately, Bill Paxton and I settled on the Panavision Zeiss Ultra Speed Primes."

"The Cannes Film Festival has finally come to an end, and the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, went to Blue is the Warmest Color (also known as La Vie d’Adèle: Chapitre 1 & 2). The film, a small intimate love story, made history for a number of reasons, including being the first Palme d’Or winner based on a graphic novel, as well as the first film shot on a Canon digital camera, specifically the Canon C300. Click through for more on the film and some clips below.

(...) While most previous Palme d’Or winners have been shot on film, the last two years have seen films shot only on digital — certainly a sign of the times. It’s definitely interesting that the production chose the C300, most likely for its ease-of-use, low-light abilities, and flexibility on set, as they recorded internally to CF cards."

"Color film first burst onto the scene in 1935 when Kodak introduced the world to Kodachrome, and the first of this film that was available to the public was the 16mm variety for home movies. Later, Kodak introduced similar 8mm and 35mm film for home movies and photography, respectively, but it was the 16mm film that had finally offered consumers the ability to easily capture their world in color for the very first time.

The above video is a rare clip released by the Romano Archives that shows what French tourist Jean Vivier was able to capture using the 16mm film all the way back in 1939, when he came to visit the Big Apple."

The company behind the Ultra HD/4K cameras responsible for the likes of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Spider-Man and House of Cards has launched the world's first Ultra HD capable machine for the home – and there's not a disc drive in sight.

Promising a BBC iPlayer-on-iPad style download service, the Redray 4k Cinema Player goes on sale this month for around £950 to become the first commercially available Ultra HD source.

It could effectively see the end of both Blu-ray and even the whole idea of the shiny disc itself.

"We’ve all been speculating that this year’s NAB show would be a major one in terms of new cinema-style cameras at incredibly low price points. After Blackmagic Design shook up the cinema camera world last year, the market seemed destined for another company to swoop in an steal the BMCC‘s thunder. However, a photo of two brand-spankin’ new Blackmagic Cinema Cameras has been leaked, and it’s definitely real. It appears that Blackmagic has done it again, and their thunder is locked down in a vault that would leave even Danny Ocean and his team of 13 stumped. Check out the photo below for the limited details that we have at this point:"

for its movie-focused Lumix DMC-GH3 mirrorless camera, the 14-42mm and 45-175mm power zooms and the 45-150mm lens. The GH3 update adds the ability to shoot 1080p60 footage in MP4 format and lets users connect to a computer via Wi-Fi by entering the computer name (NetBIOS names for Mac). Meanwhile the lens updates promise improved autofocus performance in AF Continuous mode when mounted on the GH3. Click here to download the latest firmware

The company has also announced a partnership with UK-based Rankin Film Productions (RFP). Panasonic has provided RFP with three GH3 camera bodies and lenses to produce three three-minute films as part of a promotional campaign."

The Coloristos ColorCast is a monthly podcast about Film and Television Color Grading, Color Science, and Post-Production. If you're interested or involved in color grading, finishing, and digital intermediate post-production, this show is for you.

"In this Episode of the ColorCast, the Coloristos discuss color grading applications you'll be seeing at NAB 2013 from DaVinci Resolve, Adobe SpeedGrade, and Avid Symphony, to SGO Mistika, Assimilate Scratch and Autodesk Lustre. They discuss the continuing upheaval in post production, and how 2013 could be a make-or-break year for several different products. They also cover very new and upcoming products like the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Ray, RED Laser, as well as Blackmagic's acquisition of Cintel and how they could help form the basis of new market segments like 4K delivery and affordable film scanning."

The Coloristos are:

• Josh Petok, a colorist working on reality and episodic television in Los Angeles.

• Juan Salvo, a colorist and online editor for films and commercials in New York.

"Hexolux™ revolutionary LED Fresnels are the new industry leader with the highest efficiency, highest spectral quality and the highest return-on-investment in the industry. The Hexolux modular system combines innovative features including F-stop dimming™ (a Digital Scrim™), flicker-free, super light-weight, CRI of 98, hand-held battery options, and wireless DMX control via iPhone/ Pad. The Hexolux Xum7 was launched at NAB this year and instantly became a huge hit. At Cine Gear 2013, Hexolux will introduce the highest CRI Daylight balanced LED Illuminator in the industry. Its an improvement on HMI in every way: efficiency, color rendering, flicker-free, light-weight, lower cost, no heat, modular to create any size source, DMX remote control, and more. Hexolux will also show the Xum7 Indie, an affordable 80W version of the Xum7 Fresnel. Look for Hexolux in the New Products section in the June issue of American Cinematographer. Greg Moreland of Moreland Lighting brought his Spectrometer to the Hexolux booth at NAB to test the Xum7 and said, “It is the best 3200k lamp I have measured here or anywhere else."... Hexolux.com
Via Thierry Saint-Paul

"When we planned the redesign of our Burbank facility, we set out to upgrade our rental department with the most state-of-the-art and efficient rental bays we could imagine. A large part of this was introducing a completely redesigned resolution chart specifically designed to meet the more stringent demands of today’s 4K digital cinema cameras and lenses.

Jesse Rosen, AbelCine’s Director of Technical Development, designed the charts, beginning with extensive research on what to measure, the many patterns and designs to consider, and evaluating what worked and what didn’t.

Many of our specialists and rental technicians spoke with AbelCine clients and personnel to gather their opinions and input on what should be included in the new charts, and continued to check in every few weeks throughout the process."

"Robert from JuicedLink gives us an NAB preview of the latest BMC366 Low Noise XLR Preamp designed to tackle audio issues with the BlackMagic Design Cinema Camera. Robert has also been aware of the many comments and questions regarding Tascam’s latest DR-60D product announcement and shares some of his thoughts."

Here is my video blog looking at the New Sony NEX FS700 www.fstopacademy.com/blog We've shot a couple projects on it and this film walks you through the main new features and I discuss our initial thoughts shooting with this camcorder.

"Launch film for new "G" camera to be announced by Panasonic on the 17th September ahead of Photokina. I am certain nobody knows the exact model number of this :) I cannot, for obvious reasons such more until Monday...

Although... there is much more info on my blog post here: philipbloom.net/?p=27241and loads more on the 17th including the excellent BTS!!

"Most are familiar with how ISO controls a camera’s sensitivity to light and susceptibility to film grain. However, ISO has other consequences with digital, and its implementation often varies. This article explores how ISO is evolving and influencing camera technique in the digital era.

BACKGROUND. With film, one had to select and load a specific magazine in advance, so the ISO speed had to remain constant. If the exposure needed tweaking afterwards, the film could be “pushed” or “pulled” during development. However, doing so was only practical within a limited range of effective sensitivities—otherwise colors, contrast, grain and other qualities would suffer.

With digital, ISO functionality has improved substantially. Camera hardware no longer has to be swapped out, so ISO has effectively become an in-camera exposure setting along with aperture and shutter speed."

"Robert from JuicedLink gives us an NAB preview of the latest BMC366 Low Noise XLR Preamp designed to tackle audio issues with the BlackMagic Design Cinema Camera. Robert has also been aware of the many comments and questions regarding Tascam’s latest DR-60D product announcement and shares some of his thoughts."

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